Primate Fred’s Easter message:
“Christ is Risen, Christ is Risen; Tell it with a joyful voice”
Having made our journey through Holy Week, commemorating the events of the Lord’s passion, death and burial we come now to Easter and the joy of His Glorious Resurrection.
Sunday by Sunday throughout the great festival of Easter, we take delight in hearing those stories of how the risen Lord appeared to so many — greeting and calling them by name, opening the scriptures and teaching them, breaking bread in their midst, bestowing his peace, breathing the Holy Spirit into their hearts and then sending them into all the world. Alongside these wonderful stories are accounts of the earliest Christian preaching recorded in The Acts of the Apostles.
The important thing about Easter is that these were events not stories: they actually happened, they have objective reality. At Easter, Christians delight in the fact that Jesus rose physically from the dead, not in hearing those stories. I’m sure Fred realises this – maybe.
This reminds me of an unhappy game my wife and I used to play when we attended church in Langley, B.C. We called the game ‘spot the heresy’. We would listen to the preacher give his sermon and wait for the time when he either skipped a critical passage or point pertaining to the scripture or used weasel words like ‘story’, ‘tale’, or ‘account’ to describe events in the Bible.
If we’re at church simply to tell each other interesting stories, then why not do a series on Aesop’s fables? The problem is that even these would be rewritten and restructured to support a post-modern liberal view. That grasshopper who refused to work while the ant collected grain would be the hero of the tale because the grasshopper didn’t support the corrupt capitalistic system of supply and demand and instead enlightened himself through the arts and finding his ‘true voice.’
Yikes. Why doesn’t Hiltz just come out and say that he thinks the Bible is bunk?
Yes, really happened; and as Nancy Pearcy says, an event which didn’t really happen can have no spiritual significance – a truth which the revisionists ought to hear.
To be fair the word “story” does not necessarily equate to fiction. I don’t think the hymn “Tell Me the Old Old Story” has to be rejected just because it uses the word “story”. By itself, I see nothing wrong with the quote from Hiltz.
Warren,
If an orthodox Christian used the word “story” in the context of Easter, I’d agree with you. In Hiltz’s case, though, I remain unconvinced.
That’s why I said “By itself . . .”. 😉